Beyond Statecraft-- Saumya Shah

The State, identified, glorified and criticised by idealists and realists alike, is an entity that commands respect like no other. So much so, that it's given precedence over the individual that resides in the State.

Idealists like Plato and Hegel personified it and considered the State to have a mind and a will. They reasoned that the will of the State is represented by its laws and must hence always be obeyed. Hegel also toiled with the idea of worshipping the State. Woodrow Wilson, an early advocate of idealism believed in the notion that nations, as well as man, transgressed the laws of God at their peril and moral principle, constitutionalism, and faith in God were among the prerequisites for alleviating human strife.

The realists here had a different approach when it came to the protection of the state. They believed that without a government institution in power, humans retreat to a very chaotic state which would lead to “war of all against all”. Thomas Hobbes, the 17th century contractualist called it a ‘state of nature’. He believed that an all-powerful monarchy was the only way to prevent this chaos and perpetual state of war. In his rather cynical world, every man had something against the other and the only way to keep men from slicing their neighbours’ throats was to have an omnipresent power monitor their actions and hold them accountable. Men that have shared similar views as Hobbes include thinkers like Niccolo Machiavelli, Kautilya, Morgenthau and Chinese military strategist Sun Tzu.

To these men, moral reasoning wasn't much of a consideration for a ruler surrounded by greedy advisors and neighbours, all of whom were advancing their own interests.

Machiavelli, in particular has been rather blunt about men and their ambitions and how a ruler (or in this case the man or men in charge of a state and its welfare) must pacify, threaten, annihilate and reward those around him in a manner that the state and its welfare is secured. Many readers found Machiavelli extremely cynical in his book titled Prince. But to readers who must deal with affairs of the state, this cynicism and paranoia are vital in ensuring that they're always on their toes and have accounted for most if not all eventualities that their state might encounter. Machiavelli doesn't mince his words when talking about nobility and their fallacies. He exposes the insecurities that lie beneath the confident facade of powerful men and calls men (both in position of power and otherwise) as fickle minded. In his experience men have no allegiances. Their allegiance is to their own vendetta or their own agenda. They will change sides and rob and plunder the same hands that nurture them if it brings them one step closer to power. Machiavelli believed that reason and favour and rewards were effective methods but when the times come, a ruler must not hesitate from slicing the throats of men who dare to oppose him. In Machiavelli’s opinion, a ruler mustn't shy himself of making a spectacle of the destruction of power. A show of power, according to Machiavelli, is just as vital as power itself. It deters prospective rebels and silences naysayers. In his opinion, a ruler that rules by action, by fear and by a strong understanding of the psyche of his subjects is far more likely to succeed (and most certainly outlive) a virtuous one.

Machiavelli, evidently, was far ahead of his times. His words are just as relevant today as they were 500 years ago. What has changed rather is the implementation of his ideas in protection of the State. Gone are the days of slicing throats, making a statement by burning villages or hanging traitors by the town square. In a largely democratic world, a State or those in power cannot get away with public display of brutal acts in the name of protection. Machiavelli or his rulers didn't have to bother with Human Rights or Facebook or the UN. They would do as they please and no one would bat an eyelid. Power was all that mattered. Today, covert operations, classified jobs and surgical precision are the name of the game. And the embodiment of all these are the intelligence organisations of today.

“We are a fact gathering organisation only. We don't clear anybody. We don't condemn anybody. “

-   J. Edgar Hoover, Founder and First director of the FBI

Both Hoover and Machiavelli have interesting parallels in their stories. They spent their years protecting and preserving the welfare of their state. They both had significant power at their disposal and used every way imaginable to achieve their means. Hoover was infamous on having sensitive information on every person in the US Congress, including the presidents.

What separates both these men despite their similar professions is their modus operandi. While Machiavelli made bold statements in his book and was unhinged, Hoover kept the media, the public and the democracy in mind when he made a statement.

Burning houses, destroying villages and torturing prisoners of war as a political statement is replaced with tact, surgical precision and most importantly discretion. The CIA or RAW or the Mossad don't go about bragging their power and their acts of brutality. They keep a low profile and often, get the job done. They don't ‘kill’. They ‘neutralise’. A largely media friendly vocabulary further adds to this discretion. To date, the CIA has been involved in over a dozen military coups and civil wars since its inception after WWII. Most of them weren't even known to the public until a few years ago.

To delve even further into the modern version of protecting the state, wars and civil wars and agents in suits running behind goons are a thing of the past. They are more at home in cinema than in the real world. In the real world, guns and ammunition have been replaced by sophisticated surveillance equipment that saves time, energy and prevents collateral damage. Credit for making the term ‘surveillance’ a part of the vocabulary goes to President Nixon and his Watergate scandal. Never before had the people seen a President cry and confess and leave office on national television before.

Today, the State and its ancillaries monitor everything. Our health, our finances, our holidays, our preferences, our favourite YouTube video, our favourite food, who we meet, when we meet, our hobbies, our family background - they know it all. They probably even know your favourite sitcom. The advent of the internet and the Information Age, it isn't exactly difficult for the State to keep a track of your every move. Smart TVs, smart watches, smart home appliances, they all have a self-reliant data transmitting system embedded in them that tells the state everything.

Back in the day, we were told that “Even walls have ears”. Today, everything has ears. This no doubt has caused a furor over the issue of privacy.  No one wants someone listening in on them or watching them all the time. Some might even suggest that so much information gives the government enough leverage to falsely implicate someone in order to protect those in power. To the flag-bearers of fundamental rights and liberty, all this might seem like doomsday, and to this point all the concerns they've raised are legitimate.

Keeping all this in mind, we can't discredit the work performed by these organisations or the men that run it. We need to know what the state (or those who run it) do what they do. Let's assume that we’re in the medieval ages. The only concern for a ruler was an enemy right at the gates of his kingdom or any of his faithful subjects turning against him. In other words, the only significant threat to a ruler was largely external. Internal threats were mostly confined to petty crimes and comprised of matters usually delegated to a local officer. But with the evolving times and ever-increasing access to the Internet, threats to a state have become far more complex both in size and operation. With its military might, a nation might be able to defeat a known enemy such as a terrorist organisation. But what sheer firepower can’t counter is an isolated element within a State. Let's take the example of ISIS. It’s not a big deal for the US army to remotely target strongholds of terrorist organisations and bring them down. But these terror organisations are far defter at propagating their agenda. They promote themselves to be people with an agenda and not some mindless killers. They make their ideologies seem convincing to the youth. Imagine a teenager in a European country coming across these ideologies and being inspired by them. What if he suddenly decides to bomb his neighbourhood or kill those he grew up with, simply in the name of faith? What good is the military then? Here is where surveillance and covert techniques come to use. They are triggered by key words and keep a track of individuals who display an increasingly high probability of going on the wrong track. This avoids many incidents which might have otherwise gone horribly wrong. Keeping in mind the same scenario, some might argue that the state might propagate against a particular faith or minority simply to advance its own political goals. And this is a question of ethics. Surveillance, if used ethically, is a boon and a life saver. If used by those with sinister intentions, it holds the key to autocratic power and mass oppression. In a diverse populace, there are only a few matters that can be objectively assessed. Most matters have multiple sides with supporters of each side of the argument. What might be acceptable to one party, might seem out of the question to the other. Individuality is something that has gained immense traction in the last few decades. What this means that every man and woman with a mind and a mouth has something to say. And each of them is right from their point of view.

The questions that then arise are who decides the morality of the action of the state? Who is to decide what's good for everybody? Who is to decide what lives to prioritise and who to save first? What gives someone the authority to take decisions regarding another individuals life? How much can we trust a person or a group of people to take the fair and just decision for the masses? How do we ensure that these individuals don't end up advancing their own goals? How to we even ever know what's just and fair for everyone (After all, that's subjective)? How do we ensure that there is no misuse of power? How do we prevent the prosecution of minorities simply based on media sensationalism and isolated events? How do we decide when and how human rights should be applied and who gave those that violate these rights (in the name of protection of state), the right to do so? Who is to be held accountable for when there is a misuse of power?

These are questions that have remained unanswered. These are the questions that might remain unanswered for a very long time—not because they're hard to answer but because those in power aren't compelled to do so.

“Men in general judge more from appearances than from reality. All men have eyes, but few have the gift of penetration.”

- Niccolo Machiavelli

(The views expressed by the author are purely personal, and not necessarily endorsed by the Department of Political Science, Mithibai College.)